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Next Point Wins!

Aaron Evans, Vice President, InSource Solutions | October 11, 2021

AVEVA’s PointCloud Manager: The perfect Teammate for your Digital Twin

My son played Division 1 college basketball. As someone who loves technology, what impressed me most about his time in college was their use of data to baseline and improve the performance of an athlete and the team.

The Athlete’s Digital Twin

When you arrive on campus as a college athlete, a very detailed digital snapshot of your physical condition is captured. It is the athlete’s digital twin. This is done to capture the “as is” condition of the athlete. As the athlete develops, more data is collected, stored, and shared in a system that is a trusted living digital representation of the athlete at any moment in time. A true digital twin is achieved by capturing the athlete’s on-going, real-time physical reality and not relying on outdated information provided a year or so ago from their high school. I know from experience this older data is filled with errors and omissions.

From this data, a plan is developed to re-engineer the athlete’s body. The goal is to improve and optimize the athlete for peak performance, efficiency, and safety, reduce risk of injuries, accelerate recovery, and predict outcomes that will improve the team’s performance.  Coaches, athlete, trainers, and medical personnel all have secure access to this data from a variety of devices.

In all sports today, a tremendous amount of data is being collected. Coaches and athletes understand the value of collecting and utilizing all this data. Because in sports, one datapoint used effectively could change the game plan or adjust a player matchup and literally be the difference between winning and losing.  Of course, to be effective the data MUST at a minimum a) be current and b) be accessible at a moment’s notice to the team responsible for orchestrating a winning season.

Industry’s Digital Twins

From an industrial perspective, we too collect a tremendous amount of data.  Companies have large amounts of point cloud data from laser scans of the assets associated with their brownfield, greenfield and maintenance projects.  If you are not familiar, in general, “A point cloud is a set of data points in space. The points may represent a 3D shape or object. Each point position has its set of Cartesian coordinates (X, Y, Z).[1] Point clouds are generally produced by 3D scanners or by photogrammetry software, which measure many points on the external surfaces of objects around them” [Source: Wikipedia]

Over the life cycle of an industrial asset – whether it is a food, water or chemical process plant, offshore platform, or marine vessel –gaps often develop between the digital record of the original engineering plans and the physical as-built conditions. This presents significant challenges to design engineers and asset owners alike because such data gaps have wide-ranging consequences.

It would like asking a coach to produce a Final Four basketball game plan based on a player’s high school transcript and nothing else.

A Tool for your Trusted Living PointCloud

Companies and their entire supply chain can benefit from access to a current “3D map” of their assets. To use 3D mapping effectively, however, companies need tools that help them handle point cloud data better, improve reliability and ensure that information remains relevant to the ever-changing reality it reflects. We refer to this as a Trusted Living PointCloud.  To be accurate and effective, companies must maintain control and ownership of their data throughout the many handoffs to contractors and service providers. Further, utilizing a Trusted Living PointCloud technology paves the way to the future – creating a foundation for making safe, effective and reliable decisions with quick and easy access to critical information and its context. Once you understand your site in context, you can optimize your efforts regarding projects, and reduce risks and improve efficiency in operations.

AVEVA PointCloud Manager

AVEVA PointCloud Manager enables you to take control of your point cloud data. It can handle data from common 3D data capture devices and store it in a single accessible source ready to be used in downstream data workflows. It integrates your data agnostically, working with a wide variety of CAD, BIM and Plant Design Solutions, including those of our competitors.  You can easily connect your as-is baseline asset information to engineering information and have the flexibility to host your data securely in the cloud or on-premise.  You can begin in project execution or ongoing asset operations, or choose a hybrid approach to suit your unique business requirements.

Benefits of AVEVA’s PointCloud Manager:

  • Maximize data value and improve handling
  • Rapid deployment
  • Improve global team collaboration
  • Hardware & data-source agnostic
  • Cloud enabled
  • Easy access from various devices
  • Mitigate unnecessary risks
  • Full resolution, high integrity imaging
  • Minimize costs of both data acquisition and rework

Today, all winning Division 1 college basketball programs, rely on their athlete’s digital twin to compete.  Without it, they are leaving allot to chance.

Billions in “Winnings” are waiting

In the same way, AVEVA’s Trusted Living PointCloud, known as PointCloud Manager is helping to reduce project rework from 15% to less than 1% in engineering and project delivery. It further unlocks additional savings and benefits when used throughout the life cycle of an asset. This represents savings of billions of dollars in brownfield projects and associated rework.

In my experience, those points create quite a winning combination. Without them, you are leaving allot to chance.